Belarusian Association of Journalists celebrates its 25th anniversary!

With respect and grat­i­tude we remem­ber the fathers of BAJ — 38 per­sons, who found­ed the orga­ni­za­tion on 16 Sep­tem­ber 1995.

Today BAJ rep­re­sents over 1300 jour­nal­ists, edi­tors, pho­tog­ra­phers, lawyers, and oth­er pro­fes­sion­als who do real jour­nal­ism. BAJ means pro­tec­tion of rights, edu­ca­tion, a team of media pro­fes­sion­als, and a com­mu­ni­ty of col­leagues and friends.

The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists is a mem­ber of the Inter­na­tion­al and Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tions of Jour­nal­ists, IFEX, and the Reporters With­out Bor­ders net­work.

We had both joy­ful and trag­ic days dur­ing the 25 years of our his­to­ry.

We had suc­cess­ful law­suits, released jour­nal­ists, and large-scale inter­na­tion­al cam­paigns. But we also had killed and miss­ing col­leagues, months and years in prison, and shut down and blocked pub­li­ca­tions. With pain and sor­row we remem­ber all of our col­leagues who have passed away over the years.

But mem­o­ries make only one part of today. There is a war against jour­nal­ists in Belarus now. Law enforce­ment agen­cies detain our col­leagues, beat them, throw them in jail, and break their equip­ment.

In such cir­cum­stances, BAJ decid­ed to can­cel the cel­e­bra­tion and ded­i­cate this day to our mem­bers. Every­one who has been ille­gal­ly detained. Beat­en. Con­vict­ed. Who had their equip­ment bro­ken or seized, or whose web­sites were blocked. Who were not let to print or dis­trib­ute their news­pa­pers. Every­one who does real and truth­ful jour­nal­ism.

We are proud of you, col­leagues!

This is your day!

BAJ — 25 years togeth­er!

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Send your wish­es to our col­leagues at press@baj.by or post them on your social media with #БАЖ25РАЗАМ hash­tag — and we will pub­lish them on our web­site.